


fire eyes

by weareallmadeofstardust



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Angst, No Dialogue, Slightly - Freeform, all in lowercase, introspective, lots of other characters are mentioned but not enough to merit a tag, story structure’s weird for this one, unedited because we die like mne, very little fluff tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 16:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18253169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weareallmadeofstardust/pseuds/weareallmadeofstardust
Summary: bruce wayne, in snapshots.





	fire eyes

**Author's Note:**

> “But Charlie,” you say. “Why not write something in actual narrative format?”  
> And to that, I have no explanation.

bruce wayne is four years old, and he is an unusual child, small and soft. he has his father’s dark hair and his mother’s blue eyes, and he is quiet, so quiet. he wears silence like a blanket, footsteps soft on the old floors, voice never rising above a murmur. still, he is a child, if you know where to look. he will ask a thousand questions if he’s not reprimanded, always “why?” and “how does this work?” and “teach me, teach me, teach me.” he walks through his mother’s garden still followed by the silence that wraps around him, brings alfred the nicest flowers and holds them out with a tilt of the head, and when alfred takes them he smiles so wide. at night he sits next to his mother to hear her play piano and curls into his father’s side as he reads.

bruce wayne is eight years old and his usual quiet had become utter silence. his endless questions have disappeared, and though he follows alfred like a little shadow, he doesn’t watch what he’s doing in the same way he used to. he stands motionless at the man’s side, occasionally a small hand reaching out to brush against his leg, just enough to reassure himself he’s still here. he sits curled tightly in front of the fireplace for hours, watching the flames and avoiding the portrait of his family hanging above it. he hardly blinks, barely moves, and does not sleep. eventually, alfred will send him to bed, and return in a few hours to help chase away the nightmares. bruce does not shed tears under the light of day, only when the moon rises and alfred is there to smooth back his hair.

bruce wayne is twelve and still quiet, though not chased by the deadly silence of the immediate aftermath. he has decided that he is too old to follow alfred everywhere, and so instead, he reads. he has read every book he can reach in the wayne library before long, and a few he can’t. his teachers comment that he is a smart boy, but so shy, too old for his age. he does not make friends. he does not try. alfred is worried for him, but he doesn’t say a word, simply helps him as best he can. he doesn’t go to alfred with nightmares anymore, but when he pads downstairs to sit in the window seat and watch the moon, the man’s always waiting with hot chocolate. after school, he likes to sit at his mother’s old piano, head bowed, and trace his fingers across the keys. he brings his parents flowers every week, and on weekends, he sits in the graveyard in silence. if he cries, no one has to know.

bruce wayne is sixteen and has fire in his eyes and steel in his bones. his knuckles are bloody from the fights he can’t seem to resist, the grief and sadness of his youth morphing into rage. he spends as much time suspended as he does in school, with only the family name standing between him and expulsion. he spits words like acid on his tongue, bucks authority with a desperation even he doesn’t understand, and pulls away from alfred’s gentle touches like he’s burnt. bruce is a whirlwind, a disaster in human form, directionless but filled with _need._ alfred has stopped simply worrying and started fearing for him, this boy whose path isn’t leading him to his twentieth birthday. he eases himself through late-night panic attacks alone and collapses in on himself, avoiding the kindness he doesn’t believe he deserves. he visits his parents’ grave on fridays. sometimes he cries, but sometimes he bows over so his forehead touches the marble and whispers apologies only they can hear. after a fight that leaves him aching, he tells alfred to bury him at their side.

bruce wayne is twenty and travelling the world. he dropped out of college after a single semester, chased by an unshakeable itch beneath his skin, driving him to do _more._ he learns with a single-minded determination that he’s never felt before. the aimlessness of his teen years is gone, replaced with the will and focus that would become a trademark in his prime. there’s a settledness to him now, and he’s lost the rage that left him with split lips and bruised knuckles. the lack of his parents is still an ache. he avoids mirrors, for fear that he’ll look at himself and see his father’s face staring out at him. still, he doesn’t act like them anymore, at least not obviously, and that’s as keen a pain as seeing them staring out at him from the glass. instead, he acts like alfred, and it leaves a bittersweet taste in his mouth.

bruce wayne is twenty-four and there are circus performers falling from cut cables and a little boy screaming and he’s thrown back to a day sixteen years ago now, with gunshots and pearls and blood and figures falling like puppets with cut strings. he’s twenty-four and he’s sprinting, vaulting over the barrier and scooping a child to his chest, face tucked against his collarbone. then, he takes him home, and he finds himself with a child who is so radically different from himself that he’s floundering. still, he feels something in them align, like two broken pieces that fit together just right. it takes some work, but eventually they figure it out, and when he hears dick opening the door in the middle of the night and curling beneath the covers at his side, he decides it was worth it. this is his son, his boy, and he wouldn’t trade that for the world.

bruce wayne is thirty and dick is gone, leaving air filled with the ghosts of fighting and anger, run clean to a different city to be free of the batman’s influence. it leaves a sour taste in his mouth, that he screwed up that badly, but dick isn’t the little boy he can fold into his arms anymore. he’s eighteen, and by that age bruce had already been gearing up to begin his training. bruce is thirty, and there’s a little boy in an alley with fire in his eyes and a tire iron in his hands. there is a boy who’s not afraid to stand up to the batman, who steals his tires and cracks his rib. bruce wayne is thirty-one and there’s a new robin on gotham’s streets, another kid with fire eyes and a good heart and laughter bubbling from his chest.

bruce wayne is thirty-four and his son is dead, beaten and blown up and _gone gone gone._ he’s self-destructing, imploding like a dying star. he goes out and punches and punches and punches because nothing else can make the ache go away. he never seems to be able to forget that his son is _dead_ and _gone_ and _never coming home._ for the first time in a long time, he wishes he never walked away from that alley when he was eight, because then he wouldn’t have to lose anything. bruce wayne is thirty-five and there’s a boy with dark hair and fire in his eyes that makes him jump, because he looks so much like the boy buried months ago. in that moment, he begs whatever higher power is out there that _no, please no, not again, don’t make me do this again_ because he can’t, he can’t go through this with another little bird. but bruce wayne is thirty-five and he is on a road heading six feet under, and he is thirty-five years old and there’s another child with fire eyes and the wind at his back.

bruce wayne is thirty-seven and there’s a crime boss in gotham, which isn’t unusual, but he’s new, and he has eight severed heads in a bag and is gunning for robin. he has the joker’s old name and batman’s old secrets and acid on his tongue. he fights like a demon and talks like a secret and walks like a ghost, and there’s a bomb on the batmobile, and he’s still alive. there’s something familiar in the way he moves, and when the helmet comes off with a hiss and everything in his brain grinds to a halt, it also clicks into place. something buried deep in his chest screams _jaylad jaylad jaylad_ and he hears alfred and barbara’s twin gasps over the comms and the way dick cuts off a scream halfway through and tim’s little choking noise at his side. but there’s something profoundly wrong here, because there is a scar that slashes across robin’s throat and guns and eyes tinted green, and there’s something broken here that cannot be fixed. 

bruce wayne is forty-one and he has a sprawling family, one that he never could have imagined when he was on his knees in a dirty alley with blood staining his pants. his family is a butler who’s more like a father, an acrobat with a bright smile, the prodigal son finally returned, a quiet detective with wise eyes, a little fighter boy with prickles like rose thorns, and a child who melds into the shadows as easily as he does. his family has a hacker with a wit sharp as his own, a blonde teenager with the oh-so-familiar fire eyes, a reporter like a brother, a cat thief with a smile like knives, and an amazon who always knows what he’s thinking. bruce is forty-one and older than his parents ever were, still looks into the mirror and sees his father’s face and his mother’s eyes staring back. he wakes up in the morning and aches with the weight of the choices he’s made, but he gets to his feet and walks straight into the middle of a breakfast that involves thrown toppings and arguments launched across the table. he wakes up aching and walks into a breakfast filled with laughter, and he would not change anything.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcomed and appreciated!


End file.
